Business Spotlight: Books & Books, the Heart of Coral Gables

Every great business district has an anchor that has nothing to do with square footage or lease rates. In Coral Gables, that anchor is Books & Books. For this Sunday's local business spotlight, we're looking at the independent bookstore that helped turn a quiet downtown into one of South Florida's most desirable places to work — and why its story matters to anyone weighing office space Coral Gables options today.

From 500 square feet to a Miami institution

In 1982, a young schoolteacher named Mitchell Kaplan opened a 500-square-foot bookshop at the corner of Aragon Avenue and Salzedo Street, a short walk from Miracle Mile. According to a retrospective in the trade publication Shelf Awareness, Kaplan was teaching at Southridge High and working part-time at a chain bookstore when he decided Miami deserved a serious independent bookseller of its own.

Four decades later, Books & Books has grown into a small empire: the flagship moved in 2000 to its longtime home on Aragon Avenue — the one with the courtyard café that every Gables regular knows — and the brand has expanded over the years to locations including Bal Harbour, Coconut Grove, Pinecrest and an airport franchise. Along the way, Kaplan co-founded the Miami Book Fair in 1984 with former Miami Dade College president Eduardo Padrón, an event that now draws hundreds of thousands of readers to South Florida every November.

Why 2026 has been a big year for the Gables' bookseller

This hasn't been a quiet anniversary-lap kind of year, either. In July, the Before Columbus Foundation announced its 47th annual American Book Awards, and Kaplan was named co-winner of an anti-censorship honor shared with former "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert. "To be at all in the same sentence with Stephen Colbert was an extremely humbling feeling," Kaplan told WLRN, adding that booksellers nationwide have long been on the front lines of fighting censorship and that he accepted the award on their behalf. He told the station he planned to mark the honor during Banned Books Week in October — right about now, in other words.

It's the latest chapter in a long record of community building. In late 2023, the store launched the Books & Books Literary Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding literacy programming across South Florida.

What a bookstore teaches us about choosing an office location

If you run a small business, there's a practical lesson buried in this story. Companies touring executive suites Coral Gables often ask about rent, parking and conference rooms — all important. But what makes a location work year after year is the ecosystem around it: the places where you can take a client after a meeting, send a visiting colleague for an hour, or decompress on a Friday afternoon.

Books & Books is exactly that kind of amenity. A client meeting that ends with a stroll to a courtyard café and a browse through the stacks feels different from one that ends in a parking garage. It's part of why we've argued before that the Gables punches above its weight for small firms — see our guide to why base your business in Coral Gables and our tips for hosting clients in the Gables. Downtown districts in the Miami office market come and go in waves of construction, but a neighborhood with 40-year institutions tends to hold its value — for retailers and office tenants alike.

The week ahead in the Gables

A quick look at the civic calendar: per the City of Coral Gables events calendar, the City Commission meets this Tuesday, October 13 at 2151 Salzedo Street, with the Code Enforcement Board and several advisory boards following later in the week. If you work downtown, it's a good week to grab lunch early on Tuesday — Commission days bring extra traffic to the blocks around City Hall and Miracle Mile.

Put your office where the institutions are

Books & Books chose downtown Coral Gables in 1982 and never left. That's about as strong an endorsement of a business address as you'll find. If you'd like your company a few blocks from the Gables' best bookstore — and everything else this district offers — Gables Executive Offices provides furnished office Miami professionals can move into immediately: private executive suites with staffed reception, conference rooms, and flexible terms that let you scale without a long-term lease. For office rental Coral Gables businesses actually enjoy coming to every day, start here.

Want to see what your business could get in the Gables? Book a tour and see our suites in person this week.